


Raindrops On Roses

by maaaaa



Series: Puffer Bellies [5]
Category: The Sentinel (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-09
Updated: 2020-04-09
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:41:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23556241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maaaaa/pseuds/maaaaa
Summary: Jim and Blair deal with day-to-day life after Blair suffers a brain injury.
Series: Puffer Bellies [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1695412
Kudos: 6





	Raindrops On Roses

**Author's Note:**

> My “Puffer Bellies” series was written between September 2007 and July 2009. It is a WIP that was never quite finished. The stories stand pretty well on their own, but should be read in order.

“Get a move on Chief. I really want to get back to the truck before the rain starts.”

As they tramped through the woods Jim sniffed the air, easily picking up the salty tang of impending rain, and gauged the distance of the grumbles of thunder drifting toward them by judiciously focusing his hearing.

Blair turned his head upward, causing his denim fishing hat to slide off the back of his head. For once he’d worn it with the cord under his chin rather than down his back, so as not to lose it. It’d been Jim’s suggestion to wear it that way, and just one of a few things they’d tussled over, but Jim’d won out on all counts without having to resort to any threats about canceling the fishing outing he had no intention of following through on.

The sky overhead, seen hit and miss between the tops of the gently swaying evergreens, was a brilliant blue dotted with long, thin white clouds teased into mare’s tails.

“Hal your weather pal on channel nine said it’s not going to rain ‘til after midnight,” Blair pointed out helpfully while chancing a dubious look at Jim from behind the safety of his sunglasses. “I don’t know what the rush is. I caught three fish and you said we could cook ‘em in a fire like you learned---,”

The remainder of the thought dropped off and hung in the air.

“In Peru, when I lived with the Chopec,” Jim filled in for him. He’d caught the look and shrugged it off with a tight-lipped smile and a headshake.

“Yeah, yeah, that’s right, that’s right,” Blair agreed, nodding his head. His hat swung to the side and dangled off his shoulder.

He stumbled along, keeping his footing by means of outthrust hands for balance, not taking his eyes off the sky. He held his pole in one hand, and the tip snagged branches every few feet, stretching almost to the point of him losing his hold on it, and then snapping back with short, springy twangs as the branches let loose.

Jim was right behind him, patiently urging him onward, and took the pole before it could break or whip back with enough force to catch Blair in the eye. He shifted his own gear awkwardly in order to accommodate it, sliding his creel around to his lower back with a few hip jerks as he walked. He didn’t mind that Blair was left empty-handed, and Blair didn’t seem to notice.

Blair’s motor skills and co-ordination had improved drastically in recent months. It was evident in simple things like hiking this path to one of their favorite fishing holes, and the confident way he baited his hook and cast out his line. He still had a clumsy tilt to most physical activities, and reeling in and netting a catch was always a cross between nerve-wracking and comical for Jim to watch, but he’d come a long way.

“You promised we could cook ‘em in a fire Jim,” Blair went on, his voice balanced on the edge of petulance. He stared intently at the sky for another moment and then looked back over his shoulder at Jim.

“Hal your pal isn’t always right,” Jim answered by way of rebuttal to the mildly accusatory look Blair’d leveled.

And he’d made that prediction at least six hours earlier, and about forty miles west of where they’d gone to fish, and before the barometric pressure dropped like a rock as it’d been doing for the past half hour, Jim thought to himself, his skin still stippled with gooseflesh from the feel of it.

“He’s a weatherman Jim. He went to weatherman school,” Blair stated with bland conviction, as if that meant the guy couldn’t be wrong. “You’re not a weatherman,” he added as an afterthought, in a perfectly reasonable tone.

“I think they like to be called meteorologists,” Jim said by way of distraction, not liking the fact that Blair seemed to be putting more faith in old Hal than in him.

“Really?” Blair stopped in his tracks and turned completely around to face Jim. He smiled lopsidedly. “Did I know that?” A shadow of doubt crossed his face, there and gone, and then he shrugged, not waiting for Jim to hazard an answer. “Why?”

“Why what?” Jim questioned back. He motioned for Blair to start moving again with a quick jerk of his head, not having a free hand at the moment to shoo him along.

“Why do they like to be called meteorologists?” Blair said the word slowly and carefully. “They don’t study meteors.” He stated with dry logic. “They study weather,” he added as if Jim needed a reminder.

“I think it’s a Greek word, Chief. We’ll look it up when we get home, ‘k?” Jim replied.

“”K,” Blair responded happily as he turned and started walking again, now dividing his attention between the path and the sky. “Naomi dated a Greek guy once,” he segued in the next breath. “I liked him. His name was Dimitrios, but he let me call him Dim. I was only seven or eight I think, and thought it was the funniest thing ever. He was a good guy.”

Blair’s sporadic episodes of temporary recall had become easier for Jim to take, but less and less brought him any hope that his full memory would snap back permanently.

“Is that right?” he coaxed easily, always willing to glom onto any vestige of the old Blair. “Naomi’s coming for a visit again next week. Maybe you could ask her about Dim.”

Naomi visited quite often, and called regularly, though the phone conversations always left Blair with a politely confused look on his face. He did much better with her in person, but their interactions were more in the vein of amiable, casual acquaintance than the close mother-son bond they’d once shared.

“Hoo, boy, don’t think so, man.” Blair cringed a little, and then shook his entire body as if he were a wet dog wringing himself out. And then he chuckled and took his eyes off the path and the sky for a moment to mug for Jim.

“Ah,” Jim said knowingly, with a mild snort. He really wished one of Blair’s recollections of his childhood with Naomi would show up, just once, when she was around.

The wind picked up just then, gusting down through the trees and along the trail with the fervent whoosh of rustling pine needles. A muted boom rattled the air followed by the steady thrum of rolling thunder echoing and bouncing off the surrounding foothills.

Blair glanced upward in response just as the leading edge of a band of dark clouds rolled into view above the treetops. A raindrop landed with a soft splat on the tip of his nose.

Jim hunched his shoulders with a sudden jerk and lowered his head to protect his ears, crinkling his nose in a tight grimace.

Blair whirled around with his arms outstretched in abandon as more raindrops pelted his face and upper body. His twirl ended with him facing Jim with awed, round-eyed excitement.

“You’re a better meteorman than Hal!” He exclaimed as he jabbed a finger at Jim with short jerky thrusts, and then motioned toward the sky and the general surroundings.

Jim was working his jaw in an effort to lessen the residual ringing left by the sudden thunderclap. He still managed a silly grin at hearing the conglomerated epithet Blair’s brain had supplied on short notice.

Blair gave him a quizzical look, noticing his fishing pole in Jim’s hand. He looked at his own hand even more quizzically and then reached for his pole.

“Are you okay, Jim?” he asked, his voice and face now etched with worry. He put a hand on Jim’s forearm and started to pull some of the other gear away from him.

Jim relinquished his hold on Blair’s pole, but fended off Blair’s attempt to take more by flapping his elbow. He used the freed hand to press three fingertips against one of his ears as he continued working his jaw.

“Yeah, Chief, yeah, I’m fine,” he assured him in a loud, raspy voice. “Just a little tinny.” He pulled his hand away from his ear and made circling gestures around it.

Then he used the hand to get Blair moving again by nudging at his upper arm, and waggling his fingers at the path. When Blair turned, he placed his hand between his shoulder blades and gently pushed.

Blair did pick up the pace then as the rain began to fall steadily. It was somewhat hampered by the trees and it pittered and pattered overhead as it fought its way downward, bringing with it an earthy fresh scent.

“Tests, man, we’ve gotta do some tests.” Blair was muttering as he walked. “We’ve got meteor guys now but tribes didn’t. They had sentinels. I don’t think we’ve ever done any weather predicting tests. We could---,”

Jim’d been listening and his throat’d been tightening and when Blair’s voice petered out, he swallowed hard.

They reached the truck and the rain was coming down in a warm gentle drizzle in the open parking area. Jim hustled Blair into the cab before stowing the gear in the back. He stripped off his soaked outer jacket and tossed it behind the driver’s seat as he got in.

Blair was trying to take off his jacket but he was twisted awkwardly in his seat, his elbow was bent wrong and his arm was stuck halfway out of the sleeve. The confines of the cab further hindered his effort.

Neither spoke as Jim helped Blair, but when the jacket was at last flung into the back alongside Jim’s and they were both settled in their seats, Blair turned to Jim with an earnest, anxious look on his face.

“I used to help you,” he stated flatly. And they both knew what he meant.

“You still do, Chief,” Jim replied confidently around the constriction in his throat and chest.

Blair twiddled his fingers, picking at the edge of his shirt, and looked at the floorboard. He shook his head morosely and then swiped his sniffling nose with the cuff of his right sleeve.

Jim tugged Blair close and wrapped an arm around his shoulder. He spoke quietly, rubbing Blair’s arm soothingly.

“When I first met you, I was ready to go crazy. You didn’t let that happen. You taught me how to be a sentinel. And now all you have to do to help is be here.”

He’d told Blair the story of how they met many times, sometimes a longer version, sometimes even more abbreviated than this. And Blair always believed it, because Jim believed it.

The rain poured down, sheeting off the windshield and pooling in rivulets that ran along the side mirrors. Flashes of lightening lit the late afternoon sky intermittently, dogged by growls of thunder.

“I don’t wanna forget Jim,” Blair whispered after a while.

“It doesn’t matter, Chief,” Jim said. He squeezed Blair’s arm tightly. He watched the rain and barely blinked when the lightening sparked and flickered. “I’ll remember for both of us.”

Blair squirmed away from Jim and gave his nose another good rub. He looked at the rain too, and then expectantly at Jim.

“What about the fish?” he demanded.

Before Blair could launch into a tirade about the aborted Chopec-style fish fry Jim started the truck, turned to Blair with a devilish grin and a glint in his eye and asked, “Ever had sushi?”


End file.
